1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to the field of information storage, and more particularly to disk drive servo control systems for controlling the disk arm assembly movement across the surface of a rotating disk.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hard disk drives (HDD) typically comprise at least one disk having a magnetic medium for storing information, a spindle, a controller for controlling disk rotational speed, a transducing head (for reading and writing data), a servo actuator assembly including a positioning controller for positioning the head over the appropriate disk track, and data channels for transmitting data to and from the disk. The transducing head reads data from and writes data to the disk in data blocks having either fixed or variable length. A data block comprises a preamble (for acquiring timing signals), timing bits, a position error field, address bits, data bits, and error correction bits. Data blocks are recorded in sectors in concentric tracks. A track may comprise several sectors. The number of sectors may depend on the radial location of the track on the disk. FIG. 1 shows a typical HDD as described above. FIG. 2 shows the transducing head positioned over a data track on the disk.
Conventionally, the transducing head is mounted on an arm and the arm move across the surface of the rotating disks to access the proper track. The positioning controller directs the transducing head to the correct data track and maintains the head position to align with the centerline of the data track. The position error field consists of a prerecorded series of magnetic bit flux reversals, and when read by the transducing head provides a substantially sinusoidal position error signal (PES) with a frequency of one quarter of the baud rate. (Baud rate refers to the number of distinct events per second in a modulated signal, and in the case of a read channel, refers to the channel frequency.) The PES includes higher order harmonic frequencies. The bit pattern is typically a repetition of “11001100” known as the 2T pattern (some in the field refer to the pattern as the 4T pattern). The “T” in the 2T pattern represents the channel bit period. The recorded position error field flux transitions are spaced generally to one side or the other of the centerline of the tracks.
The servo controller demodulates the PES and uses the amplitude of the PES to position the head over the centerline of the data track. If the amplitude is above a certain level, the controller positions the head to one side of the track centerline, and if the amplitude is below a certain level, the controller positions the head to the other side.
The PES amplitude is used as an error correction signal to the servo controller and varies with the distance of the head from the centerline and with the sampling phase offset. If the position error fields are written asynchronously with the timing recovery field, there will be a sampling phase offset when the PES is demodulated. This sampling phase offset is random, and provides an additional source of PES amplitude variation.
Referring now to FIG. 3, the head reads the position error field in words of 4 bits (the 2T pattern) as the PES 301 and provides the PES along with any associated noise to an analog continuous time filter (CTF) 302 that is set in the differentiation mode. Electronic and magnetic sources contribute to the noise. The CTF, when set in the differentiation mode, has the response curve shown in FIG. 4, wherein the CTF filters any low frequencies, and attenuates frequencies higher than 0.25 of the baud rate. The ideal filter would block all energy over 0.5, but a filter having such a sharp cut-off is difficult to construct in view of the cost, size, and energy constraints in HDD read channels.
FIG. 5 shows the frequency response spectrum for the sine wave produced by the 2T pattern before filtering. This spectrum has a fundamental frequency at 0.25 baud and a third harmonic at 0.75 baud. Harmonic frequencies cause interference with the fundamental frequency when the analog signal is sampled at intervals of T because any energy outside the Nyquist band of 0 to 0.5 baud will fold back into the Nyquist band. Here the third harmonic is at 0.75 baud, and is outside the Nyquist band. Depending on the sampling phase, this out-of-band energy will either constructively or destructively interfere with the fundamental frequency. The analog-to-digital converter (ADC) 303, FIG. 3, samples the PES and the energy contained in the third harmonic reflects to the fundamental frequency, either adding to or subtracting from the energy of the fundamental frequency depending on the sampling phase offset.
A second harmonic may be present if the transducing head has a non-linear transfer function. For example, a magneto-resistive transducing head is non-linear because a positive pulse produces a different amplitude than a negative pulse. This non-linearity also affects PES amplitude variation. FIG. 6 shows the frequency response spectrum of the PES when a transducing head having 25% asymmetry is used. In this example, the second harmonic caused by the transducing head asymmetry is stronger than the third harmonic.
Referring again to FIG. 3, the CTF 302 passes the filtered PES to the ADC 303, which samples the filtered signal at the channel frequency. The ADC then passes the sampled signal to a 4-point discrete Fourier transform (DFT) 304 for producing the PES amplitude signal 305. This amplitude signal provides a position error signal to the actuator position controller. Any variation in the amplitude signal not representing an offset from the track centerline will produce a positioning error. The variation due to the sampling phase offset is such a variation. As shown in the example in FIG. 7, the output of the DFT varies by +4.5% depending upon the sampling phase offset.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus that reduce the effects of sampling phase offset on positioning a transducing head over the centerline of a data track in an HDD.